christopher-scott-maynar Reviews

I Heart Huckabees (2004)

revisiting Huckabees ten years later

[7/10 · 17 September 2014]

It had been ten years since I'd seen Huckabees and while the film hasn't changed my reaction to it certainly has. When I first saw the film I loved it. I loved how the message of the film was fairly simple but all the distracting double speak and psycho-babble made the film feel aloof and unapproachable. I was in my mid-twenties and I guess I was attracted to aloof and unapproachable. Now those same qualities in this particular context are somewhat annoying and feel pretentious for the sake of being pretentious. Not that this is bad movie by any stretch of the imagination but rather a movie made for a younger man by a younger man.

Albert (Schwartzman) is having an existential crisis and hires a pair of existential detectives (Hoffman and Tomlin) to solve a coincidence. The detectives decide to pair up Albert with his "other" Tommy (Whalberg), to help him with his case. Tommy is a militant environmentalist/firefighter who plays a perfect contrast to Albert.

The film has moments that are laugh out loud funny to why the hell would they do that disturbing. Most of the humor comes from how painful unaware the characters are of how they sound or appear and Mark Whalberg is especially gifted at saying imbecilic statements with pure conviction. I had forgotten how great he was in this movie. Most of the performances have a bit of a wink to them but not Whalberg, he plays the role completely straight and in turn steals scene after scene.

The film tells us that it is about nothingness vs meaning and the struggle between the two. Is everything connected and meaningful or is existence just chaos with no connections or meaning? This can be a frustrating subject to turn around in your mind while you explore your own existence and watching a film maker struggle with the same questions is twice as frustrating.

The moments of levity make the film easy to watch but the subject matter and tone didn't quite match up for me. With that being said I admire O Russell for making this film. It took guts to make such a unique film. While the film didn't hold up the way I expected I'm certainly glad it exists. I'm glad that I live in a world where thoughtful 20 somethings can discover this film and start to ask themselves the important questions.

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The Zero Theorem (2013)

Classic Gilliam

[9/10 · 16 September 2014]

Qohen Leth (Waltz) is a reclusive computer programmer working on the zero theorem, a theory that all existence is meaningless and nothing is connected. This film fits in perfectly with Gilliam's other future films Brazil and 12 Monkeys and I can comfortably say this is Gilliam's finest film since 1985s aforementioned Brazil. While the film is dealing with the meaning of life and existence its never heavy handed and is often quite funny. Familiar themes from other Gilliam films like big brother, government and madness are all explored but he clearly was thinking about technology with this outing.

During the opening sequence Qohen is bombarded by advertising while walking to work. A moving video billboard mentions a promotion called "Occupy Mall Street" and while this is clearly satire its sadly not that far off from our current reality. Most of the satire in the film is rooted in our overall relationship with technology, from the way characters in the film are all wearing ear buds to how people at a "party" all carry iPads. We are shown a reality that plays closer to an actual mirror than an exaggerated self image. Clearly Gilliam is asking us to disengage from our distractions and engage with our surroundings.

Bob (Hedges) a 15 year old programming prodigy helps Qohen to interact with the outside world and find meaning in his life or at the very least he begins to open up to the possibility of experiencing the world outside of his job and home. Bainsley (Thierry) is a woman Qohen meets at a party and shows immediate interest in him. She Bob and Bainsley act as agents of change, both characters represent opposing sides of the same idea. Both want him to connect to a world outside of himself but Bob encourages him to go physically outside and Bainsly wants him to connect through a computer. She says "It's better than real. You're in your computer and I'm in mine. We're connected by memory chips and fiber optics. We're safe here"

Most films about the existential questions in life are somewhat dense and academic in their approach but this is a film by Terry Gilliam so its really only fair to compare him to his previous work. Gilliam's films are always stunning to look at but sometimes his subjects are not worthy of the beauty he surrounds them with. This is not one of those films. This is classic Gilliam where both the story and the setting are deserving of one another. That symmetry that few film makers can achieve the way he does.

www.followingfilms.com